West Side (Conference) Story: Burke's Fightin' Words
Brian Burke, Anaheim Ducks general manager, likes a good scrap. He's a big fan of having mindless brutes on the ice and he's a big fan of unleashing those brutes on unsuspecting, smaller men.
With this in mind, Edmonton Oilers GM Kevin Lowe better frickin' check himself before he wrecks himself.
In response to Lowe's recent submission of an inflated offer sheet to Ducks forward Dustin Penner (a poorly-concealed effort to hurt the Ducks' salary cap budgeting), Burke had this to say,
"Edmonton has offered a mostly inflated salary for a player, and I think it's an act of desperation for a general manager who is fighting to keep his job."
Apparently, the term "gutless" was also used by Burke to describe his Edmontonian counterpart.
Oh snap!
It's obvious, at least to Dear Lord Stanley, that Lowe better watch his back from now on. Burke is known for sending enforcers to do some dirty work now and again, and Lowe just might find himself face down on the ground with a broken neck.
Dustin Penner, on the other hand, will probably just find himself a lot richer but stuck playing in cold, unforgiving Alberta for a really lousy team instead of sunny Anaheim playing for a really good one. Such is life.
5 comments:
Burke is an enigma to me, on one hand he's right.. I think Lowe is throwing out these contracts to save his job (short term)
But on the other hand, he's a jackass who likes thugs and brutes
The level of monies and long term contracts for "good", not great, players is getting crazy. Dustin Penner is a good team player -- rises to the occasion end of the season, but isn't worth that much cash.
I am a little surprised in Kevin Lowe and the Edmonton franchise. Smells a little of Keenan.
tdr
Oh, don't be so hard on Burke. It's Marc Crawford that unleashes the brutes. Burke just pats him on the back for it afterwards. Totally innocent.
But seriously. I'm going to conduct an experiment - simply for scientific purposes, mind you - to see how much crack a person has to smoke to get to the point where they'd offer a player like Penner $4 million a year.
That sounds like an exciting experiment. Be sure to put the results on YouTube.
Well, I would have except that in my state of scientific inebriation, I forgot to take the lens cap off the camera. Not that it matters, since it turns out that Dustin Penner's not in the phone book anyway. Then there's the minor matter of me not having 21 million dollars. Or a hockey team. Life is so unfair.
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